A lang-established seaport, it haes a population o approximately 2,190 residents. The auld toun is clustered alang the characterful an windin main street, flankit wi hooses an shops biggit frae local stone, wi narrae lanes an alleys branchin aff it. Thare is a ferry link frae Strumnis tae Scrabster on the north coast o mainland Scotland.

First recordit as the steid o a inn in the 16t century, Strumnis became important durin the late 17t century, when Ingland wis at war wi Fraunce an shippin wis forcit tae avoid the Inglis Chainel. Ships o the Hudson's Bay Company wur regular visitors, as wur whalin fleets. Large nummers o Orkneymen, mony o whom came frae the Stromness aurie, served as traders, splorers an seamen for baith. James Cook's ships, Discovery an Resolution, cried at the toun in 1780 on thair return voyage frae the Sooth Seas whaur Cook haed been killed.[4][5]

At Strumnis Pierheid is a commemorative statue bi North Ronaldsay sculptor Ian Scott, unveiled in 2013, o John Rae staundin erect,[6] wi a inscription describin him as “the discoverer o the feenal link in the first navigable Northwast Passage.”

The pairish o Strumnis includes the islands o Hoy an Graemsay an a tract o aboot 5 miles bi 3¾ on Mainland. The main pairt is boondit on the wast bi the Atlantic Ocean, on the sooth an the sooth-east bi Hoy Soond, on the north-east bi the Loch o Stenness.

Writer George Mackay Brown wis born an livit maist o his life in the toun, an is buriet in the toun's cemetery owerleukin Hoy Soond. His poem "Hamnavoe" is set in the toun an is in pairt a memorial tae his faither John, a local postman.[7]

Stromness is referred tae in the title o Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's popular piano piece "Farewell to Stromness", a piano interlude frae The Yellow Cake Revue, which wis written tae protest at plans tae open a uranium mine in the aurie. (The title refers tae yellowcake, the pouder producit in an early stage o the processin o uranium ore.) The Revue wis first performit bi the componer at the Stromness Hotel on 21 Juin 1980 as pairt o the St Magnus Festival; the uranium mine wis cancelled later that year.

Stromness presents tae the Atlantic a range o cliffs frae 100–500 ft heich an tae Hoy Soond a baund o growthie lawlands. The rocks possess great geological interest, an war made well kent bi the publication o the evangelical geologist Hugh Miller, The Footprints of the Creator or The Asterolepsis of Stromness (1850).

↑A dinner service Captain Cook used on his final voyage is on view at Skaill House, Bay o Skaill, hame o 19c. Skara Brae excavator William Watt, a mansion built bi George Graham, Bishop o Orkney 1615-1638, on the steid o a fermsteid datit tae the Norse period.